Before the year ends, we again have another ROG product on our hands. The ROG NUC has managed to garner curious looks, including ours, this 2024. But with its small frame, is it a device that you should consider? Or is it but a gimmicky PC? Read this ROG NUC Review to know!
| ROG NUC (2024) | |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home |
| CPU | Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 Processor 185H, cTDP 65W |
| Chipset | Integrated |
| Graphics | NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4070 Laptop GPU 115W+25W Dynamic Boost 8GB GDDR6 Intel® Arc™ GPU2 |
| Memory | DRAM MODULE(DDR5)/5600/16G x 2 |
| Storage | SSD PCIEG4/1TB M.2/PERFORMANCE |
| Audio | Realtek/ALC256 |
| Back I/O Ports | 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C w/ DisplayPort 2.1 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A 1 x HDMI 2.1 FRL 2 x DP 1.4a 1 x RJ45 LAN 1 x DC-in 1 x Kensington Lock |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 27 x 18 x 6 cm (10.62″ x 7.09″ x 2.36″) |
| Weight | 2.6 kg (5.73 lbs) |
The ROG NUC is available in four different versions with each one varying between the combination of GPU and CPU. For more information on the different SKUs, visit the product page here.
Apologies for the dust-ridden stand. The rubber material that holds the unit itself is a dust magnet.
Part of the charm of ASUS NUCs is that you can open them and tinker with the internal hardware. In short, you can upgrade the ROG NUC’s RAM, storage drive, and the even the ROG logo.
| Resolution | 1920×1080 | Frame Rates | |||
| Games | Preset | Average | 1% | 0.1% | Notes (Score, etc.) |
| Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | Ultra High | 94 | 49 | 32 | 100% Render Scaling |
| Dota 2 | Best Looking | 112 | 58 | 49 | – |
| Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition | Extreme | 46 | 30 | 28 | Ray Trace Ultra, DLSS OFF |
| Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker | Maximum | 144 | 67 | 51 | – |
| Rainbow Six: Siege | Ultra | 244 | 164 | 71 | 100% Render Scaling |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Highest | 141 | 100 | 53 | DLSS OFF |
| COD: Warzone | Extreme | 96 | 26 | 23 | 100% Render |
| Black Myth: Wukong | Cinematic | 54 | 33 | 23 | DLSS On, 100% Super Resolution |
| Total War: Warhammer 3 | Ultra | 81 | 61 | 51 | – |
| Space Marine 2 | Ultra | 66 | 49 | 25 | DLSS On, Render Resolution: Quality |
Based on the numbers acquired during the gaming benchmarks, the ROG NUC is a very capable machine when it comes to 1080p resolution. Recent titles such as Black Myth: Wukong and Space Marine 2 play surprisingly well at even their highest possible settings.
Although you can have the ROG NUC run games at 1440p, note that the frame rates are likely to be lower compared to the numbers recorded above.
These benchmarks are meant to measure the device’s performance relative to other peoples’ machines. We plugged in a mix of CPU & GPU-intensive tests and other ones that measure the performance of both at the same time.
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme is designed for multi-GPU systems and future hardware generations. In addition to raising the rendering resolution, additional visual quality improvements increase the rendering load to ensure accurate performance measurements for truly extreme hardware setups.
3DMark Firestrike Extreme but more demanding. Incredibly taxing to the system as the benchmark tests how your PC can render in 4K (3840 x 2160).
3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built the right way from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API offers.
3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. It shows you how well your PC handles ray tracing effects in real-time.
3DMark Steel Nomad is a cross-platform, non-raytraced benchmark for high-end gaming PCs and Macs. It uses the DirectX 12 API on Windows.
Benchmark Score: 7,206
Cinebench leverages the same powerful 3D engine found in the award-winning animation software Cinema 4D Release 20 to accurately evaluate CPU rendering performance capabilities across various systems and platforms.
Extreme performance and stability test for PC hardware: video card, power supply, cooling system.
The Blender benchmark Score is a measure of how quickly Cycles can render path tracing samples on one CPU or GPU device. The higher the number, the better. In particular, it’s the estimated number of samples per minute, summed for all benchmark scenes.
wPrime is a leading multi-threaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results.
The ROG NUC is a small form factor PC marketed to users that have no intricate knowledge of PC building and those that would like to save time. With that said, the ROG NUC is designed to be used immediately upon taking it out of the box. Simply plug it to any power source, attach a keyboard, mouse, and a display and you are good to go. There’s no need to fumble with anything or deal with any complicated tech here. Just a plain and simple PC that you just have to plug in to a working socket to make it work.
Together with its ease of use, the ROG NUC also targets those that live in small spaces like condominiums. As space is a premium, bulky mega PC cases, while beautiful, take too much space. To counter that, the ROG NUC presents itself as a small package, that despite its compact form, still packs impressive hardware made for gaming. This makes the ROG NUC quite a space saver and can be snugly hidden behind your display or even inside a drawer (provided that it has decent airflow)!
It can also double as your living room PC, stealthily looking like those disc and music players of yore.
You can also take advantage of its small size by taking it out with you when you travel. Although we have gaming laptops for this, the ROG NUC is a great PC if you do plan on staying in a different place for extended periods of time. For example, you can use your hotel room’s display instead of bringing your own, making it a good compromise between comfort and performance. If you do dream of having this kind of setup, may we suggest a keyboard and a mouse to partner with it?
With the ease of use and the small frame, compromises have to be made. The ROG NUC is run by hardware made for laptops. Its Intel Core processor is of the mobile variant together with its NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU. This means that if you compare its performance to a desktop equivalent, you’ll be seeing different numbers that unfortunately leave you at a disadvantage. Mobile equivalents of desktop chips are often hard capped to a degree given that temperature and heat dissipation are major concerns. Nonetheless, the hardware packed inside the ROG NUC are still formidable and seeing the hardware benchmarks above, it can still game well with modern titles.
The ROG NUC is ASUS ROG’s return to the gaming NUC market. Although this is not ASUS’ first time in getting into this niche, the ROG NUC manages to both surprise and excite. It’s a great hardware in terms of performance and numbers, and the small form-factor makes it a good choice for those living in places where space is limited. To top it all off, you can easily get this thing running in a minute as you only need a working power outlet to make it run.
Given that ASUS also has its good stable of gaming laptops, the ROG NUC finds itself in a precarious situation. Gaming laptops come with a keyboard, a gaming mouse, and a display which are nowadays often good enough to rival even desktop displays. This eliminates the need to buy anything extra if you get a gaming laptop. In contrast, in the ROG NUC’s case, you still have to buy them to properly game.
In terms of mobility, you also are more mobile as you can literally pop open your laptop anywhere even without a power socket. Batteries truly are a blessing.
Hardware-wise, the ROG NUC does not have anything worth boasting as it uses the same hardware as that of a gaming laptop. Just cooler. And less mobile.
Truth be told, the ROG NUC 2024 commands a high price for the convenience that it offers. If you can build your own PC, from planning to buying, then you are not the market for the ROG NUC. It’s a device made with convenience and time in mind, easily making it a good choice for those that are not technical enough to do PC DIY. However, it also is a bit caught in the middle as you can also get formidable gaming laptops with the same or even lower price tag. This leaves the ROG NUC in a limbo as choosing between it and a laptop that comes with everything you need into one leaves little room for thinking.
The ROG NUC is available in the Philippines and can be purchased either online or in-store. Initially available in only two variants, it is now available in four with the difference solely between the combination of two processors and two GPUs. For the pricing of the initial two versions, check out the table below:
| MODEL | SPECIFICATION | SRP |
| ROG NUC 760 | Intel Core Ultra 7 155H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU | PHP 109,000 |
| ROG NUC 970 | Intel Core Ultra 9 185H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU | PHP 135,000 |
If you want more information about the ROG NUC, you can visit the official product page.
If you fancy a gaming laptop with a large screen and with all the bells and whistles, check out our ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 review. For a more affordable gaming laptop alternative, check out the ROG Strix G16 Review. If you find yourself travelling often, maybe a handheld gaming PC is for you so read our ROG Ally X review. Otherwise, if you want to go all in and make a PC with almost no visual wires, check out our ASUS TUF Gaming Z790-BTF WIFI Review
